Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon in the grievance debate to talk about a topic which I know is at the very forefront of the minds of many members of the House. I know that this issue is impacting on many of my rural and remote communities in Maranoa. Many people know that I represent a landmass in Queensland that is just under 50 per cent of the landmass of Queensland. There is a huge network of roads across my electorate, from the remote parts to what we call the inner suburban areas in the Darling Downs—not suburban in the context of the ACT, Sydney or Brisbane but certainly suburban by any criteria you can measure it against, such as in places like Birdsville, Bedourie and Windorah in the outback of my electorate.

Roads in any community are a vital link. They are a vital link for access to education, commerce, health, social interaction and tourism for those communities. They are the very conduit that brings economic activity to any community. Many of the roads in the outback of my electorate remain unsealed. They are generally main road responsibilities of the state of Queensland. We know that the state Labor government have very little regard for the people who live anywhere west of the Great Dividing Range. They are paying little attention. Although I must admit they have put some money into some of these roads, it is not enough to make the big difference we require in this part of my electorate. The local councils themselves are putting all of the money they receive from this government under the Roads to Recovery program into those roads to try to extend the bitumen on what has been dirt roads since the original settlement took place out in the outback of my electorate.

One of the initiatives of a previous coalition government was the establishment of beef roads in outback and north-west Queensland. Those roads have made a tremendous difference to the beef industry but, unfortunately, those roads were only partly completed because the coalition lost government, which ended that program back in 1974. So in many parts of the outback in my electorate there has not been any great program to extend sealed road access to these towns since 1974.

We have tourism playing an increasingly important role in the economies of these communities as people seek to discover the wonders of outback Australia and all that it has to offer. The great early poets of Australia, such as Lawson or Paterson, described it more adequately than I can. All of that spirit and beauty of the outback is captured in the outback of my electorate. But the people who visit it and see it find themselves on many dirt roads. Unfortunately, the people who travel out there have not had the experience of driving on dirt roads and on some occasions they find themselves in difficulty on these roads. In fact, nearly every week there will be a rollover on the road going west of Windorah to Birdsville because of the state of the roads, notwithstanding that the local councils out there are putting all the resources that they can muster, out of our Roads to Recovery money and their own rates revenue, into those roads.

The other aspect of these roads out in the outback of my electorate is the fact that the beef industry rely on being able to get their products into these remote communities in the Channel Country and get them back out. In fact, in many ways there is an environmental aspect to having good roads, because when droughts occur in that part of my electorate the important thing is to be able to get the cattle out of the Channel Country, out of the affected areas, to relieve the stock pressure on that land. If you do not have a good road, you cannot get the cattle out.

You only have to read any early history of the outback and of Sir Sidney Kidman’s pursuits as a pastoralist. He went out of the outback and he bought many large properties in the Channel Country but, unfortunately, when drought set in in those days they were unable to get the cattle out. There was no grass and there was no water. The waterholes were drying up and they did not have roads. I am sure the member for Mitchell can recall that program for the beef roads, which ended in 1974—

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